Drinking white, buying red
Why is it that wine buffs rarely have as much white in their collection as red?
I THINK it was Kingsley Amis who described the question ‘red or white’ as the most depressing in the world. If not it should have been; few remarks are so equal in terms of snobbery and acute observation. Yet it’s a question few wineys ever get to grips with. As usual, I find the handiest example of irrational and probably in some ways ridiculous behavior is my own.
I drink as much white wine as I do red. In fact, I consume slightly more of the straw coloured stuff than the purple because much of my imbibing occurs at home rather than restaurants, where I almost always prefer fish to meat.
Bottles so consumed are generally local wine and from Burgundy. Lately I am becoming a great fan of Loire wines. Indeed, I thought I had gone off or grown out of Sauvignon Blanc until I tried some bottles of Henri Bourgeois. His wines were fabulous. As were, I might tangentially add, some of my recent tastings from Greece and New Zealand.
Anyway, the Loire (and the other) wines were sublime; but you don’t see much white (imported) wine on ordinary restaurant lists, and when you do it’s not generally a Bordeaux Blanc or a Loire white. And when I do come across quality whites, I can’t afford to buy them at current restaurant prices.
If you forgive another tangent while I remember, even hotel or restaurant lists don’t pay enough attention to the bottle age of white wines. There’s an almost universal culture of ‘latest release + a year’ or – especially with local wines whenever vintage is available – ‘backdated’ vintages that should have been consumed years ago. Not to mention storage conditions. Ignorance then is the call of the day. Just think that three more years in the bottle in some whites can make the difference to even relatively modest white Burgundy.
Speaking of which, in the hope that a third tangent might take me back to where I was, I had some Andessitis of 2002 from Kyperounta Winery – a hundred per cent Xinisteri – and I opened the last bottle last week. Most of us are great believers in drinking Xinisteri young. It was delicious – the minerals and acidity at their best – and I am sure it is a bit more elegant and complex for my taste two years older.
Finally; the point: I drink a lot of white wine especially white Burgundy, more than any other single kind of wine. Bit I don’t own many. Like the great majority of wineys, the overwhelming proportion of the wine I own is red. Weirder still what white there is is either Champagne, Italian, Cypriot, Greek and quite a bit from New World, not much Burgundy. Apparently this is quite norm among wineys, which speaks for itself.
Wine of the week
2004 Vasilikon, K&K Vasilikon Winery, Kathikas, Alcohol volume 12%
Our wine of the week is indeed a ‘summer wine’, a Xinisteri varietal from the same winery that produced Ayios Onoufrios in Kathikas. This is one of the best wines from this indigenous grape variety. Yellowish colour, fresh, fruity nose of citrus, melon, and white flowers, crispy acidity, medium body and citrus – particularly grapefruit, conquer the palate. It has a long and pleasant aftertaste. Served at 9?C, this wine definitely goes with acidic salads and fried red mullet. Good value, drink now.
